music review : Valerie Gentile – Love is Luxury

You might know Brooklyn native Valerie Gentile from her work as a guitarist with The Cruxshadows, Black Tape for a Blue Girl, and Angelspit. Her skill set ranges beyond that, as she’s also a recording engineer and a vocalist. She gets to flex all these muscles on her EP Love is Luxury, which was released on August 20th. The gothic element of the EP is immediately apparent with the sound of the organ at the opening of first track “So Far Away”, which features Abbey Nex from Combichrist. Nex helped with several things on this EP like mixing and synths, and his guest vocals are a welcome addition. It goes to show one good thing about solo EPs, which is the fun you can have when the solo artist brings just the right friends into the context. Nex and Psyclon Nine appear on two songs, and Faderhead mixes a track as well. The EP continues to move on at a good clip throughout its four tracks of industrial goth shoegaze goodness. It doesn’t slow down too much, nor does it get aggressively fast, but the rhythm maintains a thorough dance-ability throughout.
– Dylan Madeley